Jodi got invited by the DFW Tap Talks organization to give a short talk for the public. I tagged along for the event. I have always wanted to check out one of these “science on tap” talks, and I was not disappointed! It was a great night of 20 minute […]
Physics
257 posts
SMU students are invited to explore physics through the lens of creating games and gaming experiences using interactive technologies. Coding, math, visualization, and storytelling combine in a landscape of physical laws to allow us to interact in increasingly realistic ways through a virtual space. Games may break the laws of […]
Modern Physics is an origin story of extremes. Extreme speed. Extreme smallness. It was in these corners of reality that old notions found their limits and new ideas could rise to solve mysteries. A hot cup of coffee and a cold cup of ice water, observed over hours, teach us […]
It never fails. An optical recording disc, with its numerous small grooves, causes light from a hydrogen discharge tube to spread out in a rainbow. Except this rainbow is incomplete, with only a red, a cyan, a blue, and a violet line. Where are all the other colors? Hydrogen cannot […]
Four of us stood in the lobby of the La Fonda Hotel. The beautiful space sits just off the main square in Santa Fe. You could almost feel the ghosts of the Manhattan Project walk past as people now sat, perhaps unaware, reading papers, waiting for friends, eating in the […]
Before I wanted to be a physicist – I mean, really wanted to become a physicist – I learned the joy of tinkering. I am sure it started earlier than when I remember it actually happening (memory is funny that way), the first first recollection I have of fully losing […]
The conference, Rencontres de Blois, takes place annually in the Chateau de Blois. This year was the 30th anniversary of the conference and the 31st such edition of the conference. The conference is a synthesis of particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology – a perfect match to the strengths of our […]
Any person with a minimum sufficient experience in life has been rewarded with failure. A subset of those people, with sufficient practice, will come to recognize failure, not as a friend, but as a teacher. A recent useful (and ultimately harmless) failure in my class became a key teaching moment, […]
By my own recollection, it was the spring of my second year in college. I was a sophomore who had stumbled in my physics and math classes at Yale. I had tasted what it was to no longer be the best student in your classes, and it was hard to […]
We could see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wit’s ends for fear. Homer, “The Odyssey”, Book XII In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer and I revisit the first time human set eyes on […]
The Voyager probe looks back on our planet, so many decades ago. Our whole civilization, and all the wonders and terrors it has wrought, clinging to a pale blue ornament that hangs, lit by its parent star, nearly alone in the void.
I woke up a little late this morning. I wanted to be up at 4:30am. It was 4:40 when I realized the alarm I had set the night before was going off, and I pulled myself out of bed. Jodi was already up, working on her class prep for the […]